1920s – In the twenties women wore their hair short. I mean REALLY short, as in the ‘Daisy Dukes’ of hair short. Popular styles included the bob, the shingled look, the Dutch Boy, and the Eton Crop -- a very short/show the ears-style inspired by students of the famous British prep school for boys. All in all, the boyish look ruled. So who, you wonder, inspired this craze? A boy, of course, Well, actually a man.It was author F. Scott Fitzgerald of The Great Gatsby fame. In 1920 he wrote a short piece for the Saturday Evening Post entitled, “Bernice Bobs Her Hair.” It featured a sweet but socially inept girl who ‘transformed’ into a smooth talking vamp by way of her society-girl cousin and a pair of barber’s shears. Alas! A new role model was born or, rather, written.

Betty Davis

1930s – In the Thirties, women got tired of the boyish look and decided to embrace their curves – and that included hair. Not only did hair grow longer (though still not past the shoulder), things started to get curly. The big thing? Finger waves. By 1935, everyone had to have them. Paired with sausage curls, pin curls, or just alone, hardly anyone played it ‘straight.’ One thing that did carry over from the Twenties was the importance of hair styles being able to accomodate the latest hat wear fashions. Back in the day women wore hats, a trend that continued into the Sixties.

Lauren Bacall

1940s – The trend toward more feminine looks continued in the Forties, with some styles even dropping below the shoulders (gasp!). At the same time, many women had to ‘man’ up and take over the jobs fellas left when they went off to fight in WWII. So while sultry movie stars like Lauren Bacall and Veronica Lake could let their long locks flow, every day women with long hair wore snoods, a sort of cool-looking hair net that a girl wouldn’t be caught dead wearing today. As I’m telling you all this, keep in mind there were no hand-held blow dryers or flat irons/curling irons around (a couple of early models ended in scorched hair). Women relied on metal clips and/or curlers to achieve the looks they wanted. Due to this, many women washed their hair only once a week – a lot of them at their hairdresser’s – where it would be styled and dried by those mammoth hairdryers you have to sit under. This practice lasted all the way into the Sixties.

Lucille Ball

1950s – Okay, so the war was over and women were back and home where they belonged J. Thus began the ‘happy housewife with perfectly coiffed hair’ phase. Though styles continued to stay primarily short, they grew more glamorous. Soft and curly were all the rage, with straight hair still a ‘no-no.’ Still, for a short while, pony tails tied with a chiffon scarf were popular with teens, giving them a break from sleeping with curlers and/or clips in their hair. Oh! Remember the poodle skirt? Well, they also had the poodle cut, made popular by I Love Lucy star, Lucille Ball. As the decade progressed, hair started to get bigger, which leads us to the Sixties….

Marlo Thomas

1960s – Ahhh….the Sixties. In like a lamb and out like a lion.Hair started out in Fifties style, with curls progressing to big and looser. Bouffants, beehives, and lot of back-combing – all were seen back then. Later on we saw the flip style, too, with straight hair curled up at the ends. Near the end of the decade, things started to get groovy and long hair finally came into fashion in a big way. Straight or wavy? Didn’t matter. Just “flow it, show it, long as God can grow it,” like they sang in the song Hair from the hippie movie/musical Hair.

Though only a portion of women embraced the free-and-easy hippie lifestyle, most everyone embraced idea of ditching all the curlers and hairspray and moving toward simpler styles..

Farrah Fawcett

1970s – Hair stayed pretty simple in the early Seventies. That was good, because the country was a mess. The backlash from the Vietnam War and President Nixon’s ‘dirty tricks’ left a bad taste in everyone’s mouths. Who cared about hair? We had to fight ‘the man!’ A lot of teens went around looking like Marsha Brady from The Brady Bunch, with long, straight hair parted down the middle. Then, as I so eloquently expressed in last week’s post, Farrah Fawcett changed it all in 1976. Glamour was back on, and it was fuller, more feathery. The advent of hand-held blowdryers earlier in the decade helped to make that happen. Since I covered this time period pretty well last week, I won’t go into too much more detail. Instead, I will take the time to honor the absolute corniest shampoo ever to debut : Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific. It took the U.S. by storm in the mid-Seventies, complete with goofy commercials. Walk up to your mom and say that phrase (with enthusiasm, of course) and you’re sure to get a chuckle.

Janet Jackson

1980s – As you know, the Eighties were the most important decade because that’s when I was a teen. JAnd as you also know, being the ardent “Mom’s Blog” follower that you are, hair was BIG. For full details on Eighties hair hit last week’s post, though I will add a few more details now. Case in point: the modern curling iron. It was invented in the Eighties and, trust me, we couldn’t have lived without it. Crimping irons came later, too, as well as the glorious scrunchie – a scrunched up fabric thingy with a rubber band inside. If you put your hair into a ponytail, you HAD to do it with a scrunchie. Getting your hair permed was a big thing, too, which meant we saw a lot of frizzy looks. All in all, it was a decadent decade and our hair was an extension of that. Sad, really. Let’s get to the Nineties.

Jennifer Aniston

1990s – The decade started out with the slow decline of big hair. Though still kept alive by the ‘Super Model’ era – a time when Cindy Crawford graced every magazine cover imaginable, the look grew softer and sexier. Then a radical shift took place. Remember Farrah Fawcett’s impact in the Seventies? Well meet Jennifer Aniston, a.k.a. ‘Rachel’ from the hit TV series Friends. When the show came out in 1994, everyone went screaming into their hair salons to get some version of the cut. Okay, maybe not everyone, but at least 99.98% of the population. This lead to smoother looks with longer layers surrounding the face whether hair was long or short. Actress Meg Ryan also played a role, adding some short, choppy style to the hair equation.

Mischa Barton

2000s - Hmmm….the 2000s. What can I say? There was a lot of different hair out there. Teen girls tended to slowly go back to the longer, straighter looks of the early Seventies. Plus we can’t forget the genesis of the whole pony tail/rubber band head business we still have today. The flat iron became the hair tool du ‘jour, which aided the trend toward sleek looks. Women also leaned toward sleeker looks. Permed hair became much less common. Frizzy hair? A thing of the past. Plenty of short dos also emerged, some of them pretty spikey. All in all, it was a toned down decade, which suited everyone fine.

So there you have it, my personally compiled history of hair. I hope you enjoyed the good, the bad, as well as the ugly. I wonder where we’re headed next.

Weird Author

My name's Murphy, Janene Murphy, and I'm a weird mom.

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